A sharp characterization of the Willmore invariant
A sharp characterization of the Willmore invariant
First introduced to describe surfaces embedded in [Formula: see text], the Willmore invariant is a conformally-invariant extrinsic scalar curvature of a surface that vanishes when the surface minimizes bending and stretching. Both this invariant and its higher-dimensional analogs appear frequently in the study of conformal geometric systems. To that end, …